


Brave New World

by needchocolatenow



Category: Batman (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-06
Updated: 2011-03-06
Packaged: 2017-10-16 03:19:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/needchocolatenow/pseuds/needchocolatenow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damian Wayne ends up in the world of the Young Justice cartoon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brave New World

**Author's Note:**

> yj_anon_meme: "There will be a crossover with the Damian Wayne/Robin of Earth One.
> 
> Through magic, dimensional portals, or good old fashioned mad science the son of Batman will come face to face with a young Dick Grayson; And it will be the most awkward team-up ever."

Tt. Villains always have to do something flashy; it’s one of the worst qualities that they can have. It never works out for them either way, so why can’t they ever skip it? It’s redundant and useless and an entirely huge waste of time. I can snap their necks, but Grayson won’t let me.

“Robin, move!” Grayson yells. He’s panicking.

“It’s a toy,” I snap because whatever the hell the want-to-be-Toyman is aiming at me is bright green and doesn’t look a bit like a bazooka at all. What kind of bazooka doesn’t include shells? Idiot.

“Another step and I’ll blow you to bits!” the idiot with the toy bazooka yells. He’s flustered and breathing hard and his fingers are doing a strange dance on the trigger. He’s three steps away from me. I can pound his face into the concrete. He’s going down, armed with a bazooka or not. We’ll see who’s faster; me or his trigger finger.

A batarang catches the idiot in the shoulder and he nearly drops the bazooka. “Shit—” he’s saying as he tries to hold on to the oversized weapon and stop the blood flow at the same time. “Shitshitshitshit!” His finger presses down on the trigger.

Maybe I realize a bit too late that what he’s carrying isn’t a bazooka. It’s some sort of energy beam, disguised as a bazooka. There’s an ugly, bright blue color that collects at the muzzle and it’s not aimed at me. Its aim is straight at Grayson’s chest and being the utter failure that he is, he’s standing right where he is, a deep scowl on his face, body poised and ready for something.

“Tt!” This is the something and why isn’t he moving?

There’s a deafening roar and Grayson’s still as stone. He’s a moron. Why is he such a moron?

Even if the villain is three steps away, the blast is less than one. Against my better judgment, I take that one step forward. Grayson better thank me for this. I’m keeping Batman’s reputation from plummeting into the sewers, not that it isn’t headed that way already.

 _Grayson, you owe me big time._

-

“Hey, you okay?”

Someone’s poking me in the shoulder and I grab for the offending finger, ready to break them, but my hands wrap around thin air. Huh. Whoever it is has annoyingly good reflex to be able to dodge me when I’m feigning unconsciousness. A quick mental checklist tells me that I’m still in my Robin gear and the mask is still on my face.

I open my eyes and sit up.

It’s nighttime and from the looks of it, just a few minutes after I was shot by the energy beam. The location hasn’t even changed—Crime Alley—and Grayson’s nowhere to be seen. Instead, a bunch of kids are standing not too far away, looking at me.

Since the mantle of the Bat will eventually become mine, I had read and studied extensively the allies and enemies of my Father. I know every superhero he’s worked with by their picture and name. The ones standing before me aren’t the ones he’s worked with, but rather…

That red and black outfit is only worn by him. That thief, trying to take what is rightfully mine away from me. He is inferior as a warrior; he’s not spry like Grayson or heavy handed like Father. He’s not even aggressively violent like Todd. He’s a pacifist masquerading as a fighter. He has no right to the Batman legacy, much less be a Robin.

“Drake,” I say. “What is the meaning of this? Where’s Batman?”

Grayson wouldn’t just leave me here to these idiots. He knows how much Drake and I despise each other. So where is he?

Drake just looks to a dark skinned boy; tall, confident, with webbed fingers and fins on his calves. An Atlantean, probably. Father didn’t have him on file. The Atlantean gestures calmly and says in a surprisingly smooth voice for one so young: “I am Aqualad—”

“Tt. I don’t care,” I interrupt. So there’s a new Aqualad running around in the world. I tap the radio in my ear, deeply annoyed by Grayson’s disappearing act. I save his life and this is how he repays me? “Batman, I don’t know where you ran off to, but if this is some sort of practical joke, it’s not going to end up fun for anyone.”

I pull out my grapple and I’m about to fire it off when Kid Flash zooms in front of my face. “Whoa! Hold on!” he practically yells and he grabs at my arm. He’s the one that was poking me when I woke up. I growl and glare at him, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “You!” he says, so intelligently. I restrain the urge to roll my eyes because it’s beneath me to do such a childish thing.

“What, Allen? For someone who was once the Flash, you sure are slow at making your point.”

He pauses, green eyes wide. “That’s not my name,” he says. He narrows his eyes and he tightens his grip on my arm. “Who are you?”

Everyone knows who I am; I’m Robin. I look again, observing this time, and Kid Flash’s hair is wrong; Bart Allen’s hair is brown, Barry Allen’s hair is blond. There’s only one speedster that’s been documented as having red hair and Wally West has been declared missing. Superheroes—metahumans or normal—all have a way of resurfacing.

“West,” I sneer, confident that I’ve placed a name to the wearer of the costume. “Let go.”

He does, but that’s only because he’s looking at someone behind me. I turn around to see a girl with green skin reach out her hand to my face and—

-

I say the first thing that comes to mind when I wake up.

“Fuck.”

I hate psychics or any person that can get into my head. It’s the strange feeling of something different in your head, like a really cold wind between your ears, and no matter how hard I fight, it’s almost impossible to push them out. Almost. Moth—Talia had never taught me. Grayson said that he will, soon.

“—name?”

Aqualad’s talking. I flex my arm and realize that my gloves have been removed. Nearly all my gear is gone; gloves, utility belt, boots. All except for my mask and my left hand is handcuffed to the uncomfortable bed I’m laying on. I open my eyes and take in the room; the dull, white of an infirmary and the curtain around the bed is drawn back and out of the way. The group of _children_ —they’re not adults, not yet—are crowded on the bed next to mine, all curious faces looking at me.

A blonde, long haired and slender, is reclining in the next bed. She’s not injured and is just lounging like I’ve seen cats do. Superboy is standing behind the bed, looming and quiet. West and Drake are sitting up in the empty spaces where the lounging girl’s legs do not quite reach, exchanging frantic whispers.

Aqualad and Miss Martian are the only ones to stand in the space between the two beds. Even then, they’re all too far away for me to reach.

“What’s your name?” Aqualad asks again and I turn to look at him.

Nothing is making sense. Wally West should be the same age as Grayson, and yet here he is, younger than Drake…

I sit up, staring at Drake. Or who I had assumed was Drake because of the outfit, but now that I look, it’s not Drake’s uniform. Whoever this Robin is, he isn’t Tim Drake. This Robin is young, almost the same age as me, and if he really is Drake, one of us would be bleeding.

I look at Aqualad. “I don’t know you,” I say slowly. It’s not an admission of defeat, I’m trying to puzzle out whatever is going on. The energy blast must have done something to me; did it send me through time? No, not likely, because this Aqualad doesn’t exist back in time and Superboy should be around the same age as Drake.

I look to Miss Martian. “M’gann M’orzz.” She only twitches in response, but I see it and I know it’s her name. I turn to the others. “Wally West.”

The whispering between West and the imposter Robin dies. I skip the imposter and look to the lounging girl. “I don’t know you,” I say. I look up at Superboy, who’s actually looking white. For a boy who can bend steel with his bare hands, he’s looking awfully terrified. “Kent,” I say because just hearing his first name makes me gnash my teeth. Drake’s always been too proud of his friends, especially _Conner._

I glare at the imposter Robin. It can’t be. Their ages don’t match the dates in my head.

Somehow, that energy beam blasted me into some twisted version of reality.

He’s motioning in a Grayson-esque version of ‘cut-that-out’ in sign language, which is the equivalent of moving his hands really fast across his neck. In lieu of anything to throw, I grab the pillow my head’s been resting on and throw it at Robin’s—the imposter Grayson’s—head. He catches the pillow effortlessly and throws it back at me, almost like it’s a game of ball. He’s smiling now, like he always does.

“You’re a Robin too,” not-Grayson says and his voice is strange. Weird. Too young, too happy, even for him. “I never knew I had competition.”

I don’t know if whatever I say will affect this world, so different from the one I know. But what does it matter if I say something that will give the possible future away? This isn’t my reality.

“You don’t,” I find myself saying in honesty. Because Grayson…is Grayson. He is Father’s best soldier. The Robin that Father tried to replace with Todd, and then Drake. Now, I carry the name of Robin and I know that I’m better than Grayson ever was. Yet, it’s still not the same.

I jerk at the handcuff on my wrist. “Let me go,” I say. “Or I’ll get out of it myself.”

The group shares a look and Aqualad shakes his head. I stare at not-Grayson, finding it surprising that he isn’t leader of this ragtag group. What is the name of this group anyway? Teen Titans?

“I am sorry,” Aqualad says, though he doesn’t actually sound that apologetic. “But we do not know who you are. Where are you from? How do you know us?”

“Tt. Your puny minds wouldn’t be able to comprehend the magnitude of it all,” I say as I test the handcuff. It’s a standard Police issue, meaning it’s not that great at all. With my free hand I reach for the lining of my pants by my calf, feeling for the thin wire that should be there. It’s there, of course, because whoever stripped me of my gear is clearly an amateur. Free from the handcuff, I put the wire back in place and glance around the room. My gear is nowhere in sight.

I turn to leave, but I’m blocked by Superboy.

“You do not get to go,” he glowers, arms over his broad chest. He is not impressive in the least and I’m never confined to one place. No one confines Damian Wayne.

“You do not get to go,” I mimic at a higher pitch with a sneer. “Get out of my way and give me back my gear, _clone_.”

I watch him go from a pasty white to an enraged red as he roars and aims a punch at me. He’s faster than I expected, but I dodge just in time to see his fist disappear through the floor. The files had said he used Tactile Telekinesis, but to me, it looked like he just punched through the floor with sheer power.

And then he’s beside me, picking me up faster than I can react and I twist, trying to get out of his hold, but his large hands pin my arms to my side. I can practically hear my bones creak under his grip.

There’s no prickling sensation against my skin, no ghostly pressure of any sort. The file lied. This is no form of telekinesis, but rather the pure, brutal strength of a Kryptonian. This is not the Superboy known as Conner Kent from my reality. This is another Superboy without Tactile Telekinesis, but with powers from Superman. The fight just got exciting and more dangerous.

“You’re still new at this, aren’t you?” I ask without really needing an answer. I kick him in the chest with the balls of my feet and he falls back, grip going slack. He’s lucky I’m not wearing my boots; I might have broken a rib, or even better, broken a rib and puncture a lung at the same time.

“Stop it!” West is too fast for my eyes to follow, but I don’t need to see him to defend myself against him. Someone’s grabbing my arms and twisting them behind my back while forcing me to the floor. It’s a useless move unless they’ve got power or mass behind them to back it up. West had neither of the attributes and I relax enough to flip over him in a move that Grayson taught me. It brings West crashing to the floor instead, a sickening crack resounds through the room when he lands.

There’s an almost imperceptible wind and on instinct, I look up. Miss Martian is floating above me, looking unsure of what to do. She can knock me out easily with her little mind tricks, but if she needs to be touching me to get me down, she’ll have to catch me first.

Superboy jumps into the fray and this time, I can tell he’s not holding back. He’s throwing punches blindly, lunging forward and nearly smashing into me in the process. It’s difficult to dodge his attacks, but not impossible.

I run for the doorway and suddenly all the air is sucked away, replaced with water and the world is tilting to the side and everything is wet. I turn in the bubble of water and glare at Aqualad, who has two hilts of a sword in both his hands and coming from it were streams of water. I blurble a question, incomprehensible in the water to even me, but he seems to understand.

“My Water Bearers,” he says, his voice clear in the water, and I notice the sink in a corner is running. The water’s coming from there.

I can’t swim out of it; the bubble completely encompassing me as Aqualad carefully maneuvers out of the room with narrowed eyes. I hear distorted voices and clamoring, but it’s all a jumble of sound. My vision is blurred, but enough that I can make out that Aqualad is taking me somewhere, moving through the building to some unknown destination.

It isn’t the Tower or any place I’ve been before. The place reminds me of the Batcave, but brightly lit and without the bats. And possibly much larger.

The old Justice League headquarters, then.

I’m literally dropped into a holding cell—one without bars, but with glass walls—wet and cold.

“You are lucky the Justice League aren’t here right now,” Aqualad says. He turns and leaves.

-

It’s chilly, almost ridiculously so, and the cell is impossible to escape from without my tools. The walls are rigged so any touch lasting longer than two seconds will generate a shock at a low level voltage and continuously increase until the touch is gone. I can still feel the tingle in my toes.

The dimensions of the cell aren’t large, but more than enough space for me. At best, I can assess that the cell I’m in is built for metahumans with little power, or they would have dumped me into a more traditional looking cell with bars and all.

Damn.

It is ridiculously cold in here and it’d be humiliating to yell for help. I try to wipe away the water from the back of my neck with the sleeve of the Robin tunic, but it just leaves a trail of cold clamminess there. It makes me shiver and I’m certain I’ve got goosebumps, if I could see the skin on my arm.

Just sitting around and waiting for the children to come interrogate me isn’t the best of plans. If I were grounded and back at the Batcave, I’d at least be able to work on the Batmobile. But I’m not there, and instead, I’m in a tiny cell in a twisted reality.

I close my eyes and start to do pushups.

Somewhere around the count of three hundred, I hear soft footfalls outside of my cage. I don’t even need to open my eyes to know that it’s Grayson. He’s always been light footed, even in the heavy Batman costume. Nothing about his way of walking has changed in this reality either.

“Does Batman know?”

Three hundred and eight. Three hundred and nine.

“Know what? You’re a little vague there.”

Three hundred and ten. Body is warming up and the cold doesn’t hurt anymore.

“The way you fight. You fight to inflict pain.”

Of course, the imposter Grayson. That’s what fighting’s about; doing the maximum amount of damage that one can to their opponent before they can.

“He knows,” I answer and get up to face him.

We’re nearly the same height, though he’s just barely a hair’s width taller. He’s slimmer than I had thought he’d be as a child and he’s all awkward angles with the slightest hint of baby fat left in his cheeks. In time, it’d be gone, along with the weightlessness on his shoulders. The Grayson I know slouches and sometimes when he isn’t thinking about anything, his back bows like he has the greatest weight upon his shoulders.

It’s strange to be comparing and contrasting Dick Grayson with this younger version of himself.

“Why are you Robin?” not-Grayson asks. He seems worried, though determined not to show it. His relaxed stance is forced and anything but untroubled.

“You want to know what happened to you,” I say. “To Robin.”

Not-Grayson is quiet for a moment, probably weighing his options. “Yes,” he says finally. Confidently. He’s not afraid of what he might learn.

“You leave,” I tell him, “because you felt that Batman wanted you less and your team needed you more. Batman takes in another Robin, Todd. He dies.” I lean forward just enough so that I can see him take a sharp inhale of breath. “There’s a third Robin, Drake. Then Brown, the first female Robin. And now me.” I lean closer, close enough that I’m almost touching the glass wall. My breath fogs it up, but I can still see not-Grayson standing as still as stone. “I’m better than they all were. With the exception of you. Because you were the first.”

Because Father is sentimental and can’t let go of memories. That’s why there is still a Robin.

Because Father trusts you more than me. He didn’t give me the mantle of Robin, wouldn’t let me out into the streets. Grayson did.

“Batman is dead,” I say and not-Grayson narrows his eyes.

“He is not,” he says, like a petulant child denying that anything is wrong, but the words come out as a whisper. “You tried to get in contact him when we first saw you.”

“ _Father_ is dead. You succeeded him as _Batman_.”

Not-Grayson flees.

-

It’s not more than an hour later when thundering footsteps stop outside my cell. I look up to see West and Superboy.

“What did you do to Robin?!” West yells. He’s out of the atrocity known as the Kid Flash uniform and back in civilian clothes, though his right arm is in a sling. His face is pink with anger and Superboy looks like he’s itching for a fight.

“I did nothing,” I reply. “We conversed. Chatted. Had a talk. Anything else?”

“Well, you’re in trouble now,” West says. “The Justice League is coming back.”

“Where were they before?” I ask because I’m genuinely curious. What could be so monumental that it’d need the entirety of the Justice League and to leave patrolling to the children?

“Space,” West answers. Then he narrows his eyes and tries to look menacing. “What did you say to Robin?”

“He asked questions, I just answered them,” I say with a shrug. Baiting West is almost entertaining if it isn’t so pathetic to watch.

“What did you say to him?” Superboy growls. “He came down here to talk to you and now he’s barricaded himself in the Tech Room.” He glares. “What did you say?”

“He told me what I wanted to know,” came not-Grayson’s voice, tinny and distant, from a speaker somewhere. “Stop letting him bait you. And get out of there, the bosses are back. We have debriefing in ten.” There’s a click and the speaker turns off.

Amazingly, Superboy and West back off.

“I can fight my own battles, Grayson.” Expectedly, there’s no answer.

-

Not too long after the two boys leave, the blonde comes to see me. I wonder what I’ve done to be so popular, but then again, I’m Damian Wayne. I’ve inherited Father’s charms and Mo—Talia’s good looks. People should flock to me.

“Where are you from?” the blonde asks. “Robin thinks you’re from the future, but I don’t think so. If you know everyone else on this team, how can you not know me and Aqualad?”

Why am I not surprised that not-Grayson’s not quick on the uptake? If this _girl_ can figure it out faster than him, the future of this reality is doomed.

“I am from the future, girl,” I say. “But not this future. Another future. It’s probably worse than yours if all you goody two shoes are still playing happy family with each other.”

Unlike the boys, she’s not easily goaded, though she does scrunch her nose at being called girl. “The name’s Artemis,” she says, head held high and arms across her chest. I bet her boobs are stuffed. “How did you get here? Magic?”

“Aqualad put me in here,” I sneer. “But if you mean how I got to this reality, I was zapped here by an incompetent fool. He disguised his energy beam as a bazooka.”

She stares at me like I’ve grown a second head. “So if it wasn’t an energy beam, you would have been blown to bits,” she says. “Aren’t you a Robin? I thought you’re supposed to have more common sense than that.”

The way she says it, like I’ve made a mistake, makes me grind my teeth. What does she know? Why is she still talking? How is she sharper than this world’s Grayson? From the looks of it, she’s been trained by Queen, the ridiculous archer.

“You don’t know anything,” I tell her and she just scoffs at me.

“Says the guy that got hit by a bazooka.”

“Energy beam!” I pound my fist against the glass and a warning shot of electricity shoot through my hand. If possible, she looks less impressed than before.

“Look, kid,” she says, “you’re crazy. Starting fights here with everyone, you’re going to get flattened. Can’t you just mellow out? Try not to pick fights?” She heaves a sigh and moves her hands to her hips. “You want to get home in one piece, right? It won’t do you or us any good if Superboy rips off your arm or something.”

Home.

Of course I want to go home. But how do I get back? It’s not like there’s going to be a bazooka-energy-blaster just lying around and even if there is one lying around, how do I know it will take me back and not to some even stranger place? Getting home has never been this difficult and all I can do is sit and wait to be let out of the prison cell.

My thoughts must have shown on my face because Artemis’s face softens a fraction. “Kid,” she says and puts a hand on the glass. “Robin’s tracing energy particles at the site of origin. His big head isn’t just for show, you know.”

I bow my head slightly and look at my hands. Through the glass, Artemis’s hands are calloused, but slender and feminine. Small white scars mar her fingertips and some longer, deeper ones are covered by the arm guards she wears. I stare at my hands; they are stunted and small, even if I stretch them as far as I can, they’re not the size of hers. I’ll grow, I have no doubt of that. Father’s big and Talia isn’t tiny either. I want to see them again.

“Batman’s going to want to question you,” she says. “Just be prepared.”

I straighten and glare at her, feeling caught and exposed in my moment of weakness. “I know.”

She gives me a wry smile and leaves, running quickly for the debriefing that’s started a minute ago. I am left alone with glass walls that will electrocute me if I get too close.

-

It takes two hours for anyone to appear again and this time, from the many footsteps I hear, I know it’s the Justice League. I can hear heavy booted steps and the light footed ones all mingle together and for a moment, I picture Grayson standing in front of my cell with the cowl pulled back and his hair in disarray with that stupid smile on his face.

The image is gone in an instant when Batman, Red Tornado, Black Canary, Martian Manhunter, Green Arrow, Flash, and Aquaman all stand crowding outside my cell.

“He is…very young,” the Martian says quietly.

“I can hear you,” I inform him.

Flash smiles, but it is a sad one. “And cheeky.”

I glare at him for the lack of anything else to do. He’s like a faster and redder version of Grayson.

“We have been…briefed of your situation,” Batman says and that voice is Father’s voice. It’s childish to want to say to him _Look, Father! I’m Robin. I’m good, I don’t kill anymore!_ “You’re too dangerous to have running around. You will remain in here until further notice.”

There are some unhappy faces, but the fact that no one objects means that they’ve all come to the same consensus. I stare at them, the _Justice League_ , and feel the overwhelming need to punch something. Me, Damian Wayne, Robin to Batman—confined to this measly cage? Incomprehensible. Implausible. Impossible.

As Batman continues to talk about a schedule, meal time and toilet breaks, my teeth are grinding together so hard that I’m certain everyone can hear.

“What have I done to deserve this?” I demand.

“You fractured Kid Flash’s arm,” Batman says with a slight pause. “Your hostile attitude has been noted.”

“Hostile attitude?! He’s lucky I didn’t snap his neck. Let me out!” I slam both of my fists against the glass. I hold them there despite the horrible buzzing feeling that shakes through my entire body, the pain intensifying with each second passing. I want to tear away from it, but I hold myself steady against the hiss of electricity and the beginnings of burns on my hands.

“Kid, step away from the glass,” Green Arrow warns. He’s frowning, or some expression close to it. It’s difficult to tell with all that facial hair in the way. “Kid! Listen to me! This cell is built for metahumans, the shock can kill you!”

Flash is yelling too and so is Black Canary. Everyone seems to be in a state of panic except for Batman.

“Theatrics will get you nowhere,” Batman says, eyes narrowed to slits under the cowl. Even in the din of noise, I can hear his voice loud and clear.  How identical this man is to Father.

The pain becomes unbearable and I step away, the skin along the side of my hands raw and wet. There are stains on the glass where my hands used to be and I am trembling all over and not all of it is from the electricity. “Yes, Father,” I say and a whole other sort of pandemonium breaks out from the Justice League.

-

The Flash is treating my burns, his large hands gentle, but strong. “So, from an alternate future, huh?” he says, holding my hands into a bucket of ice water. “How’s it like there?”

I stare at him. Is he trying to make conversation? Or is he trying to fish for information?

“Dangerous,” I tell him. “Lots of people die.”

He takes it all in easily with a light smile on his face. “How old are you?”

I sit a little straighter at the question. “I am ten years old. You are Barry Allen. Father had great respect for you when you were alive.”

Even when being told of his death, he doesn’t stop smiling. In fact, he doesn’t seem disturbed at all by the news that he’s dead in my reality.

“Ten years old, huh?” he says with a low whistle. “Does Batman always start you guys off so early? There’s Robin, well, the other Robin, and now look at you.” If he disapproves, he doesn’t say. Instead, Flash just takes my hand out of the ice water and gives me a blinding grin. “Doesn’t look that bad. If you held on any longer, it might’ve gotten worse.”

He wraps a soft towel around my hands, patting them dry. It reminds me of the time when Grayson tried to wrap a cut on my arm and instead of being efficient about it, he was gentle and slow. I think I yelled at him for it.

“I am not delicate,” I say and glare at Flash. “I don’t need this bullshit. I’ve experienced worse things than getting a slight burn on my hands.”

“I’m not saying you haven’t,” Flash says and for a brief moment, his hands press against mine tightly, hard enough for the raw, throbbing part of my hands to feel pain. I force impassiveness into my expression and he drops my hands so fast, I think his arms ricochets in the air. “You’re only ten, you know,” he says.

There’s an emotion in his voice that I can’t identify. I continue to stare at him. What is he trying to say? That I’m too young for this job? That I’m unsuited for the role of Robin? That I can’t become Batman?

“This is my legacy to inherit,” I tell him. “I will be Batman.”

To my surprise, Flash starts to laugh. It’s not a deep rumbling sound like Father’s or even the strange throaty laughs of Grayson’s—this is light and filled with humor. Proof that this world isn’t as dark as my own. That things just might be better here. Flash takes the towel and dumps it on a nearby table, exchanging it for a jar of honey and some bandages.

“No,” I say and try to get away, but this man in front of me is called the Flash for a reason. Even before I can move anywhere, he has one of his hands around my left arm and forcing me still. “Are you insane? That doesn’t work. All it does is makes things sticky and attracts insects. Do I even have to mention the bacterial infection?”

“I’m quite aware,” Flash says, but he’s still dipping a—a spoon, I realize with abject horror—into the jar and scooping an inconsiderate amount of it out. He slathers it onto the burn wound and all I can do is watch helplessly as he gleefully scoops more honey out of the jar. He grabs my other hand and slathers it on as I try to not let the honey drip everywhere on my left hand.

“Lick?” Flash offers the honey covered spoon to my face.

“What is wrong with you?” I ask because this person in front of me just can’t be Barry Allen. This is the man that’s the favorite of the Justice League? The man that Father admired and even looked up to?

“You’re just a kid, enjoy life a bit,” he says and shoves the spoon into my mouth when I open it to protest.

Barry Allen is a menace, I decide as I lick the spoon clean. He wraps my hands, still sticky with honey, in white bandages and gives them a hearty slap when he’s done. “Alright, kid,” he says, taking the spoon from my mouth before I can use it to gouge out one of his eyes. “We’re not done here yet.”

He reaches behind him for a small medical kit and pulls out a packet. He opens it to reveal a hypodermic needle.

“Father ordered a blood sample, didn’t he?” I ask. Flash gives me a look and I return it. “If I were in his shoes, I’d get one taken too,” I tell him and offer up my right arm.

With the mess of bandages in the way, there’s no way for me to roll up the sleeve of my shirt on my own. Flash rolls up my sleeve and swipes an alcohol prep pad over the soft spot of my arm. The taking of the blood is a relatively quick and painless process, but neither of us says a word.

It’s a strange lull and I wonder what he’s thinking.

“So your, er, dad,” Flash says, seemingly unable to compute Batman and fatherhood in the same sentence. “What’s it like to grow up with him?” He sets the syringe aside and pulls my sleeve down.

“I didn’t,” I say, staring at my bandaged hands. He did a horrible job with them. What kind of person doesn’t know how to wrap bandages properly?

“No?”

“Mother raised me.” I glare at him and put my hands out. “Redo these. They’re terrible.”

He actually smiles sheepishly and undoes them. “Sorry,” he says. “I normally work with dead people. They don’t really complain about anything.”

The door to my little cell opens and in walks not-Grayson.

He stares at me and I stare back. Finally, I give. “What?” I ask and it sounds defensive even to my ears.

“We’re letting you out of the holding block,” he says. His expression is unreadable and the mask hides whatever his eyes betray. “But you have to be supervised at all times. When you’re done here, I’ll show you to your room.”

-

My so-called-room is tiny and bare compared to the one at Wayne Manor. There’s a twin-sized bed pushed against the far wall of the room and a small dresser next to it. To get in or out of the room, a keycard is needed and I wasn’t given one.

It’s still a cell, just disguised as a room.

I look at not-Grayson. “Give me back my stuff.”

He reaches over and ruffles my hair even though he’s barely taller than me. “In a bit, kid,” he says and I grab his arm and try to throw him to the ground. Instead, he lands on his feet with a smile. “Get some sleep,” he says, even though I’m itching for a fight. “It’s almost dawn.”

With a friendly wave and yawn, he leaves, the door sliding shut behind him with a hiss.

Almost dawn. I’ve been stuck here doing absolutely nothing for a ridiculous amount of hours. That’s a disgrace! I’m supposed to be the next Batman and I’m just sitting around waiting to be let out like a good little boy. No, this is not happening. Not anymore.

I’m glad to be prepared and read through the archives on security for the old Justice League headquarters. In the days that my spine was healing and I was confined to a wheel chair, I spent hours going over every report that Father and his colleagues had ever written.

In every room, minus the holding cells, is a small battery box, hidden from view. It shuts down the power for all of ten seconds and it’s supposed to be for emergencies only.

Ten seconds is than enough time for me to get out of the room with a door that has no lock. I set to search for the battery box, though I only have a vague idea of how it looks like. It shouldn’t be too difficult to identify, I think as I shove the dresser out of the way. Something rattles inside.

I pause in my search.

The top drawer of the dresser reveals an upturned small black box.

Tt. Fools. I plug the box into the ports on the keycard slot. The lights go out with a fizz and there’s a tiny clicking sound that echoes in the dark. I slide the door open and I’m out.

I go up a flight of stairs, just trying to get a semblance of where I am and to put distance between me and the room. The rocky floor is rough against the bottom of my bare feet and tiny pebbles keep lodging themselves into my heel. Ugh, how dare they take my things. I really want my stuff back, but I know that it’s as good as lost while I’m here. No one here trusts me. They want me as vulnerable as I can be.

I run past what seems to be a lounge area, complete with a kitchen that looks oddly modern in the dim light of the cave. There’s a smell wafting from the oven that’s warm and homely. It smells like Pennyworth’s cookies. But Pennyworth isn’t here. And even if he is here, I don’t think he’d make me cookies, not in this reality. Or would he? I don’t know.

The kitchen area, though deserted, is dangerous. Since somebody is baking, it means someone’s nearby. I tread quietly and quickly, straining to hear any sounds of footsteps. I run down the hallway and just as I’m about to turn the corner, I come face to face with Miss Martian.

“Oh!” she gasps, brown eyes wide in shock.

“Tt!” I quickly retrace my steps. How stupid of me to forget that amongst the people here, there are those that fly. Miss Martian being one of them.

“Wait!” she yells and she flies over me to block my path.

“What?” I snarl and crouch into a defensive stance. One touch from her and she can go into my mind, render me unconscious. Superboy may be the strongest of them all, but this one, this _Martian_ , is the most dangerous. I leap at her before she can say anything else and she flies out of the way.

“Look, I just want to talk!” she says. She holds out her hands and suddenly, I’m immobilized.

Telekinetics. How annoying.

“Let me go,” I tell her, glaring as hard as I can through the Robin mask.

She looks conflicted for a moment and then steels herself. “Only if you promise to listen,” she says. She floats me with her to the kitchen and does this girl not fear death? The kitchen is stocked with knives and I’m not above using them if I have to.

She sets me down on the ground and my limbs are mine again. Against all logic, I don’t run for it.

Miss Martian smiles and checks on her cookies. From where I’m standing, they look almost done. She closes the oven and leads me over to the lounge area next to the kitchen. There are open, half-eaten bags of chips and junk food everywhere.

She takes a seat on the green sofa and motions for me to sit with her.

I refuse. I cross my arms over my chest and stand my ground. We’re eye to eye now.

“I heard your thoughts,” she says shyly, apologetically. “I’m sorry. But you were thinking really loudly, you know?”

I hate telepaths. I don’t need anyone in my head listening in on my thoughts. “Get out of my head,” I growl. Then I ask her; “What did you hear?”

She gives a soft smile, tinged with some unknown emotion. It’s not pity. Sympathy, maybe. “You miss your parents,” she says, her voice quiet. It still carries and despite how sweet and easy it is to listen to her voice, I want nothing but to choke her of her words. “You’re sad that you can’t see them anymore. You’re scared that you’re getting attached to…to the new Batman. You want to go home.”

“I am not!” I yell, partially because of the first part and mostly because of the ‘getting attached to the new Batman’ part. The yell is too loud and echoes down the hall. No one comes rushing out to take me down.

Miss Martian continues to look at me with her big brown eyes. “It’s okay,” she says. “I’m a…foreigner too. This isn’t my world.”

“Don’t console me,” I tell her. “You don’t know anything about me! Why are you doing this anyway? You and Artemis. Is this some sort of ploy to get me to lower my guard? I won’t fall for it!”

Her eyes widen and she actually looks hurt. “I-I’m sorry?” she stutters. “I-I was only trying to help.”

“You can help me by giving me back my stuff! Or better yet, let me go home!” I rage. “Why am I even being held here? I don’t understand! This doesn’t make any sense! I’m not the bad guy, I haven’t done anything wrong!”

“That’s because no one knows quite what to do with you,” a robotic voice says from somewhere behind me. I can’t believe that I didn’t hear the Red Tornado coming up behind me. His steps aren’t exactly light. Every time he moves there’s sound; whether it’s the clinking of his armor or the crunch of the ground beneath his boots. “You are from the future and letting you loose in the past is…dangerous. We don’t know what damage might happen.”

‘We’ being the Justice League. Those cowards.

“I am from an alternate future! What part of that don’t you people understand? Whatever I do here there will be no repercussions! Our timelines don’t touch!” I glare at the robot. “Give me back my stuff!”

“Caution should still be taken,” he says calmly, as if I had said nothing. “Though part of the reason you’re remaining here is because you are young and reckless.”

“I am not!” I say again for the second time that day. I’m better than I was months ago. I have more self control, evident of me not tearing his ridiculous armor apart and rewiring his brain altogether.

Red Tornado stares at me for a moment, as if trying to make a point, and then turns to Miss Martian. “Your cookies are burning,” he says.

She gives a squeak and lifts off from the sofa, racing through the air to the kitchen where the once tantalizing smell of cookies is replaced with a charred, burnt scent. I wrinkle my nose at the smell.

“Since you have so much energy,” Red Tornado turns back to me, his voice wry for a robot, “I suppose we should do something to get rid of it.”

My hackles rise immediately. “Like what?”

“Like working it off,” he says. “Come. Miss Martian, when you’re done with your ruined cookies, please join us in the Training Room.” He leads the way, not even glancing back to see if I’m following. He’s awfully confident that I’ll do what he says, though at this point, it’s the only thing I can do. The chance of escape is too low.

We walk down empty halls and grand hollowed out space that looks more manmade than natural. Decoration is sparse and most of it is electric lamps that hang overhead. He stops in front of two giant metal doors, outfitted with the best technology that’s provided. I know it’s the Training Room just by looking at it. The walls surrounding the room, besides being made of stone, is reinforced with steel.

The doors open automatically, the sensors announcing loudly who’s entering.

The lights flicker on and I’m left staring. The room is a goddamned cavern and it’s definitely seen its fair share of use. Broken bases of stalagmite and stalactite riddle the ground and roof, debris almost everywhere with scorch marks on some surfaces of rocks and the ground. One corner of the room is cleared of all such debris and there’s actually a sparring mat laid out. High above is an observation deck.

“Here.” Red Tornado drops the missing parts of my Robin uniform in front of me without any warning.

The first thing I do is put my cape back on. It’s irrational, but without it, I feel like my back is exposed. “Why are you doing this?” I ask. “No one else seems to think giving me my stuff is a good idea.” I clip the utility belt around my waist and check the compartments; a few things have been removed, but they largely remained intact. The same could be said about my boots and gloves, though the concealed daggers are missing.

“Your arsenal of weapons is quite different than our Robin’s,” he says. “But at the heart of it, they’re the same. Weapons.”

“Don’t think that I’ll be easy to take down,” I tell him and charge.

His armor is unexpectedly harder to take apart than I thought as I pull back the batarangs I’m resorting to use as knives. I had aimed at the joints of the armor, but it doesn’t even dent.

“Good try,” he says and blasts a tornado my way. In this training room, he has the advantage. With all the debris that he’s picking up with the wind, he has a bigger attack range. It’s fine though; if I can’t beat a robot, I don’t deserve to be called Robin, much less become Batman.

The bright side to this is, he’s slower than me. It takes time for him to work up the tornado and it dissipates easily. His tornados are much more effective for long range combat rather than close quarter combat. I will not lose.

I get as close to him as I can and go for where the jugular would be if he were human, pushing the batarang in as far as I can with my hands.

Something grabs my cape and throws me back, the wind around me tearing the air from my lungs. Red Tornado pulls the batarang out of his neck, a faint sparking coming from the wound. He doesn’t say anything and throws it back at me. I dodge, but with the wind blowing all around, the batarang catches my cape and pins me to the ground.

“Tt!” I nearly rip the rest of my cape off as I get free just in time to avoid a boulder smashing into me. How he manages to lift a boulder with just wind power is beyond me.

I throw several smoke pellets at him, though he just gusts them away with a wave of his hand. It’s more than enough of a distraction as I climb onto his back and lock my legs around his chest, jabbing another batarang up into the back of his neck. This time, the armor gives away and I know I’ve hit the jackpot. It falls away with a clatter and the sparking of wires flare in my eyes.

I’m pushed away by a wall of wind, colder and faster than before. The air is so turbulent that I can’t take a breath or stand without overcompensating for my lack of balance. My vision is blurred at the speed of the wind.

“You fight well,” Red Tornado says and for some reason, I can hear his voice clearly through the wind beating at my ears. “But you don’t fight like Batman. Who trained you?”

The wind dissipates and I gasp for air.

I look at Red Tornado and realize that he hasn’t taken to air as is his signature move and neither has he taken a single step from where he stands. He’s been taking it easy on me, I realize, and that burns even more than the electric walls of the holding cell.

“Fight me!” I yell, even though my knees are on the ground and I’m outmatched in every possible way. It’s not fair. “What is the point of this? Saying you’re better than me? That I’m a bad Robin? Is that it?” My voice gets higher and shriller, though I try to bring it down again. It’s difficult and I forget the notion entirely when Miss Martian comes into the Training Room.

“Since neither of you are resting—something the two of you should be doing—you can spar with each other,” he says blithely. “Of course, I will keep watch. You do play a little too viciously.” The last part is directed at me.

I stare at Miss Martian. She’s timid and absentminded, and probably a little slow if those cookies were any indication, and her powers are completely at odds with her.

“Fine,” I say. I will not go easy on her. I will prove…

What am I proving? To whom am I proving it to? Certainly not to the robot and certainly not to the alien. So…who?

She tugs at her hair and fidgets in place a little. “Okay,” she squeaks and floats further away from me.

It doesn’t matter that she’s getting more distance because she’s not Red Tornado; she may have telekinetic powers, but she can’t strip the air from my lungs just by the speed of wind only. She can pin me down, but only if she can catch me. Like before, I’m aiming for a closer range in combat rather than long ranged. I’m at a disadvantage to these metahumans and their powers.

I don’t need powers. I’m better trained.

She shapeshifts into a giant sphinx-like creature, the top of her head nearly grazing the tallest part of the cavern. She stomps everywhere with strong, unrestrained power. There are grooves left in the rocks when she lifts her paws.

I dodge and throw two batarangs at her. I have seven batarangs left, along with several flash bombs and one smoke bomb. Everything else useful had been taken away.

She swats the batarangs out of the air like they’re nothing and she’s going to be much more difficult to take down than I thought. In this shapeshifted form of hers, she covers a massive area…

Of course. She’s so big that she can’t move as freely in this cavern without collapsing the whole cave in on us. That’s the weakness of this form. I charge on ahead, hoping that she won’t squish me, but instead, she falls still. I take the opening and dive for her underbelly, taking out my batarangs and—

She shapeshifts again, this time into something small and with wings, escaping higher up into the cavern.

The moment she had paused, she read my mind.

Damn it, this is why I hate mind readers. The first thing I do when I get back is make Grayson teach me how to defend against these things.

“Come back down and face me!” I yell up. I squint and I think I see a single bat fluttering around at the top and then it’s dropping down at nearly a ninety degree angle with the ground. It’s moving fast, getting closer…

And changing again!

“Tt!” I dive out of the way just as an elephant crashes down, almost flattening me. “What is with you and flattening objects?” I taunt. “Cookies not flat enough for you?”

A girlish giggle echo in my head. The elephant changes back into the form of a girl and she’s smiling. “I like chocolate chip cookies the best,” she says and flings the boulder that Red Tornado threw earlier at me. “Uncle J’onn likes Oreos.”

“Cookie freak,” I mutter under my breath and take the chance to move in close. I throw two of my batarangs, but she knocks them out of the way with a swipe of her arm. That’s all I need and I’m there, arm twisting around her neck, the sharp end of the batarang at her throat. “I win,” I say.

But then I can’t move. Frozen in place against my will.

She grabs my arm and throws me over her shoulder. I land on my back, my head connecting with the ground, the wind knocked out of me.

I’ve been beaten. Defeated. Me.

The stars in my vision don’t disappear when I blink and I try to rub them away, but the mask blocks my efforts to dispel them. Not only did I lose to Red Tornado, but also to Miss Martian.

“Are you okay?” Miss Martian’s green face appears in my vision, looking worried. She’s offering me her hand, but I swat it away and stumble to my feet.

“Fine,” I grit through my teeth.

“Good job,” Red Tornado says, his robotic voice too close. I look up to see him right in front of me. He hands me a keycard. “Go take a rest. You look like you need it. You remember the way back.” He stated the last part plainly, knows that I remember it, and I nod. I snatch the keycard from his hand and leave the Training Room. I can at the very least tell when I’m being dismissed.

I end up back at my room-cell. The lights are off, but I leave them off. My eyes are used to seeing in the dark and I sit down at the corner of the bed. The mattress is firm, new. Slowly, I undress, taking off my boots and my gloves and utility belt. Lastly, I take off the hooded cape and drop it all to the floor.

No one’s going to yell at me for being messy.

I don’t curl up under the sheets. Instead, I sit down on the bed and lean against the wall, closing my eyes as I try to think.

I haven’t ever pretended or imagined in childhood. Mother—Talia, damn it, I will never get used to calling her that—always made sure that I knew. There was nothing that I needed to pretend. There was no imaginary places or things; they either existed or they don’t. I’ve been raised on logic, on things that are tangible.

But now, I pretend and imagine as hard as I can that I’m back at the Batcave and listening to Grayson’s cheerfully bad jokes.

-

I wake when I hear the door slide open, but I don’t move despite the horrible position I’m in. It’s not-Grayson, dressed in civilian clothing. He’s wearing sunglasses in a completely dark room, and from what I can see, a darkened hallway.

“Hey,” he says, voice pitched low and sleepy. He must have just woken up. “I’m headed out for school, but uh, I just wanted to let you know that you have access to the Tech Room. If you need help with anything in there, you can ask Miss Martian. Her room’s the one next to yours.”

When I say nothing, he steps further into the room and sits down on the bed next to me.

“I’ve been monitoring the energy residue, and there’s been some fluctuations during the night.”

I tilt my head, just a little bit at the news. Fluctuations? What does he mean? Increasing values? Decreasing?

Not-Grayson smiles and he looks like he wants to ruffle my hair, but he doesn’t. “It’s just some particle increase,” he says. “It might be a fluke, but I think someone’s trying to reach you.”

“Of course,” I say and I’m immensely glad that my voice doesn’t sound rough with sleep like his. “I’m Robin. There’s no Batman without Robin.”

Not-Grayson just smiles wanly and rises from the bed. “If you’re hungry, just head over to the kitchen. Miss Martian overstocks it sometimes.” He pauses at the door, looking over his shoulder and his expression is unreadable with his sunglasses obscuring his eyes. Finally, he gives a little nod and leaves, the door sliding shut with a quiet hiss.

I return to my previously uncomfortable position of leaning against the wall on my side. It’s warm from where my body had been pressed against it as I had dozed, but everywhere else is cold to the touch. I don’t fall back into the bed, which is so inviting with its soft sheets and even softer pillow. It’s beckoning to me like a siren and I want nothing to do with it. I don’t want these silly comforts.

I can’t have been resting for very long; two hours at the most. I wander into the hall, bereft of all my things except for the yellow cape. It’s cold in the cave.

I find the bathroom and take the time to splash water in my face. There’s a mirror and I chance a look into it.

There’s nothing spectacular about the reflection. It’s my face, same as always. My hair, cut short for efficiency—nothing like the girly hair Drake and Grayson has. My eyes, still blue, but never as pale as Father’s or as deep as Grayson’s. Nothing like those in Father’s strange, adopted family. Mine are different, so different. They’re more a greyed-out color than their vibrant hues of blue. Even more grey and colorless than Todd’s.

I return to my room-cell to find Miss Martian standing outside my door, a bundle of clothes in her arms.

“Do you not sleep?” I ask and I can’t help the scowl.

She smiles in return and I can feel a tic developing under my right eye.

“I can ask you the same thing,” she says, but her voice sounds pinched and strange. Maybe she has trouble sleeping. The topic sounds touchy for her. “Anyway, I brought you some clothes. So you don’t have to keep wearing your uniform.”

“Why? I’m not staying,” I tell her.

“Yes, but you know,” she gives a nervous little shift from side to side. “You can still wear these. Everyone wears normal clothes when we’re not on duty.”

“Are you trying to tell me to fit in?” I ask her incredulously.

“No! Not at all,” she says hastily. “This is just so you can have a change of clothes. It must be difficult having to be in uniform the whole time, no?” She thrusts the clothes into my hands and waved an arm down the hall. “I know you found the bathroom, but the showers are over there. Except Superboy’s hogging it right now so I wouldn’t recommend going in. Maybe in ten minutes—”

“Okay!” I say, exasperated. “You talk too much when you’re nervous! I do not need to know his showering habits!”

She gives a squeak and turns red. It’s strange to see a Martian blush.

-

I do end up changing into the simple white shirt and drawstring pants that Miss Martian gives me only because getting back into the Robin uniform after a shower is a pain. It sticks in the worst places possible. I take the utility belt and fasten it around my waist. I start to go for the cape, but I decide against it. I don’t need it. Not now.

I go to the Tech Room, with Miss Martian as my guide. She doesn’t stop staring at my face the whole time, since I’ve decided to leave the mask behind.

“What?” I growl defensively.

“Nothing!” she says and flies down a bit further down the corridor.

The entire time, I’ve only had glimpses of Superboy. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s avoiding me. Or Miss Martian. Or both of us.

“What do you know of cross-dimension travel?” I ask her. She should know, being a Martian and coming from a world with advanced technology. However, she shakes her head sadly.

“Not much,” she says. “I think the JLA has some classified information on it, though. I think some of them have traveled dimensions before. Uncle J’onn mentioned it once.”

Great. I get to hack the JLA’s computer system for information. I’m only decent with hacking, just enough exposure from Grayson and what Oracle’s taught me. Computers are Drake’s area of expertise, much as I loathe admitting it.

I end up browsing through some files that not-Grayson’s printed out and checking the monitor that he has set up with the particle tracer. There’s an energy mass, almost like a black hole, in the back of one of the streets of Crime Alley. It’s strange, monitoring it, since I don’t even know what to look for. However, if there’s the technology to monitor cross-dimension travel, then that means there’s a way to travel with it. The technology is there.

So why hasn’t the Justice League sent me home yet?

I fling down the files that I’m looking at, tired of reading and antsy do something more productive with my time. Even if I’m watching the…whatever it is, it’s not like I can do anything about it if something happens. I’m stuck here, in the stupid cave under Mount Justice, and the portal is in Crime Alley in Gotham.

“Do you want to help me make cookies?”

I look up at Miss Martian and she’s smiling at me, probably taking pity on me for the hours that I’ve been sitting and looking over files and files of nothing.

“No,” I say. “Is the Batmobile here?”

She looks surprised. “Er, I think a back up vehicle is here in the garage,” she says. “Why?” Instead of being suspicious like anyone else would be, she’s curious.

“I want to see it. Show me the garage,” I say, rising from my seat and heading out the door. Miss Martian is instantly at my side, maneuvering me around the halls.

“I don’t know if I’m supposed to show you this,” she says, but she’s taking me anyway so I don’t comment. “But um, here! The garage,” she says. “Oh, my ship is stored here too! Do you want to see it?”

“No,” I tell her and she visibly deflates. “Just show me the Batmobile.”

There are rows of motorcycles, a ridiculous green colored car, and even a small private plane, but behind it all is the Batmobile. The one in the garage is an old model that I’ve only ever seen in photographs; I don’t know the specs, but I can hazard a guess that they’re abysmal compared to the one that I’m used to. I disengage the locks and the alarms as I open up the hood to the car and frown. The engine is ancient. I spot a tool set not too far away and break into it easily.

“Uh,” Miss Martian says, looking vaguely amused and unsure at the same time.

“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “I know what I’m doing. Now help me lift the car.”

-

“I can’t believe you took apart the Batmobile,” not-Grayson says, staring at me with fear and awe.

“I can’t believe that heap of trash is called the Batmobile at all,” I tell him with a sniff. “Mine flies.”

“Really?” not-Grayson asks, leaning closer. “Really? A flying Batmobile?” There’s a manic grin on his face, one that I know too well that means he’s up to no good. Not-Grayson and Grayson are eerily similar, despite the fact that one of them is thirteen and the other is an adult.

“Yes,” I say with smug pride. “I built it.”

“Whoa, you mean he actually let you touch it besides to drive it? ‘Cuz Batman won’t let me touch it unless he’s in the room with me or if he needs backup on something,” not-Grayson says.

“What did you do to the Batmobile?” I ask because this is a story I haven’t heard before.

Father—Batman didn’t like my upgrades. I’m not sure why not-Grayson’s grounded too, but I get the feeling it’s because he didn’t stop me from doing my upgrades when he first caught me and Miss Martian in the garage.

“Uh, nothing,” he lies and I really don’t understand how this strange, parentless boy is the Robin that I’ll never measure up to. That no one’s ever measured up to.

We’re sitting in not-Grayson’s room and while it’s not decorated, it’s not barren like mine. There are little trinkets here and there, the odd school work or textbook that peeks out from a black backpack hastily shoved under the bed. Why he still feels the need to protect his identity around me is puzzling and it makes the tic under my eye act up.

“So,” not-Grayson says when the silence stretches too long. “How did Bru—Batman die?”

“If it comes to pass, will you try to prevent it?” I ask. “Because you can’t, you know. Not even Superman can.”

“What?” not-Grayson squawks indignantly. “You don’t know that! If I take precautions, know ahead of time what’s going to happen, then everything can be averted!”

 “Everything here is different,” I tell him. “This…isn’t the same. What happened in my reality might not happen here.”

Should I tell him? Should I not? If I told him and the death of Batman can be prevented, what would happen to me in this reality? Would I have been conceived? There’s so many differences between this reality and mine.

“I should still be prepared,” not-Grayson says.

It’s not ‘we,’ but ‘I.’ He thinks he’ll be able to protect Batman. I almost laugh because I know it won’t be true.

“Are you stupid?” I ask him.

“No,” he says with supreme confidence.

“I am the fifth Robin,” I tell him. “What do you think happened to the rest of them?”

Something flickers in not-Grayson’s expression. The confidence is disappearing. “This is a dangerous job,” he says finally, considering his words carefully. “Forced retirement. Minus the one that you said…you know.”

This time, I do laugh. “Have you been beaten by Two-Face yet?” I ask. I openly mock him because despite being thirteen and partner to Batman in Gotham City, he’s naïve. Overly optimistic. Forced retirement isn’t an option because once anyone’s lived this life, they can’t give it up. Like Oracle, confined to that wheelchair like she is. Like Todd, despite being a violent killer waging his own unique war against crime and villains. Like me, because I’m destined to be Batman and I will never give this up, ever.

There is no such thing as retirement for us Bats. I know that very well.

Not-Grayson flinches and looks away. Perhaps he did get the beating from Two-Face or perhaps he didn’t because our conversation is interrupted by Batman.

The set of his shoulders is hard and his face is expressionless. “Come with me,” he says and the order is directed at me.

A parting look to not-Grayson shows that our conversation isn’t finished yet. At least, for him. I’ve already said all I need to say.

-

Batman brings me to a small, white room with a table and two chairs on opposite sides. An interrogation room. There’s a thin file of papers lying inconspicuously on top of the table and what looks to be blood-test results scrawled on the top sheet. There are visible cameras in the corners of the room, along with speakers. They’re all trained on me and I lift my chin in defiance at them.

“What is the meaning of this?” I ask, spinning around on Batman. I will not play villain of the week, not now and not with this stranger that is the exact replica of Father.

“Stop goading him,” Batman says, not even bothering to answer my question.

“I was not!” I say, but we both know it’s a lie. “What’s the point of this?” I snarl. “Keeping me here in Mount Justice like I’m a criminal! I haven’t done anything wrong!”

Batman levels a cool glance at me and gathers up the papers at the table. “No, you haven’t,” he says in agreement. “But you have nowhere to go.”

I have nowhere to go, nowhere to stay. Except for here, in a cave under the mountain with a bunch of other children that want to save the world. “Send me home,” I tell him. “That’ll solve all your problems, right?”

“Impossible,” Batman says. “We do not have the technology—”

“Bullshit!” I yell and I feel my face heating up in anger. “I saw the monitoring device! If you have that, then you should have the ability to let me go home! I don’t know why you didn’t send me back in the first place!”

Batman looks less than impressed at my outburst, but I don’t care. This…person isn’t Father. He’s a pale imitation of him, of the man that’s known as the Dark Knight. This person is cold by any other standard, but he’s friendlier and kinder than I have known him to ever be. Father would not be making daily visits to a group of children playing save the world. Father would not let Grayson be so casual around others that could discover his identity. Father wouldn’t be so kind to…to…

Father wouldn’t be so kind to shield Grayson from knowing something horrible would happen.

This bastard’s been listening in on our conversations! He’s been listening from the start and he’s protecting Grayson from me! From what I might say!

“Send me home! Now!” I demand. I can only take so much humiliation in one day.

“Listen, brat,” Batman says and his voice is serious and low and never rising in volume. His patience is gone and he’s looming just like Father. It’s slightly terrifying and I do my best to not step down, but I can’t help a dry swallow of air as I remember the first time Father has ever yelled at me. “You’ve been a handful since you’ve come here. You do not get to make demands. The Justice League is doing all they can to send you home, but the technology to travel to a specific place across dimensions is not available.”

“But you’re monitoring the site of origin,” I say and I have to look away from Batman. I choose to stare at the floor tiles. “Why?”

He’s silent for a moment and I almost think that he isn’t going to answer when he speaks. He actually sounds tired and exhausted, something that I’ve never heard him from him and it’s weird. Different. I don’t want to hear him like this. “To see if anyone else comes through,” he says.

I resist the urge to slam my hand against the table because it’s not good enough when my brain registers what I heard. “You’re expecting…someone?” I ask.

“Yes, the other Batman. Dick Grayson,” Batman says and there’s a ghost of…of some sort of emotion on his face at the name. But it’s gone before it fully materializes and I’m left wondering if it’s just my wild imagination painting this close image of Father and Grayson. “If he knows you’re still alive, he’s going to come after you.”

I think about the last statement and I think what he must be doing now. Not wallowing in guilt, I hope. But of everyone in Father’s little circus family, Grayson’s the one that likes everyone. He believes in redemption. In saving. Which is why I’m Robin and not Drake.

“Yeah,” I say and I have to clear the lump in my throat. “He’s an idiot.”

-

The kitchen seems to be the place where everyone gathers around. There’s a metal island with stools all around it and it really shouldn’t be used as a tabletop, but homework and textbooks and handheld game consoles litter it. I’m not allowed anywhere without supervision and somehow, I’m stuck with Miss Martian again when not-Grayson returns to Gotham.

I discover that she really, really likes baking cookies. But she really, really sucks at it. And West, the ass kisser, has no taste buds whatsoever.

“Why do you keep burning cookies?” I demand as I crunch on the charred remains of what was once a chocolate chip cookie. There’s a distinctly smoky flavor to it that only she can pull off, I swear. I miss Alfred’s cookies. “It is not that difficult to remember when to take them out again.”

Miss Martian flushes and snatches the pan away. “Sorry,” she mutters.

“No!” West jumps in and with super speed, plucks all of the cookies off the pan before she can throw them away. “They’re still good!” he says, glaring at me. “Don’t listen to him, Megan.” He gives her a smitten smile and then turns his head to glare at me some more.

Joy. What I wouldn’t give to get away from this.

“I don’t get it,” West says as he crams one of the atrocities into his mouth. “Why is Batman let you walk around here? Did you do something to him?”

“I did nothing,” I tell him and it’s the umpteenth time that I’ve used the phrase. I have literally done nothing except exist and that has caused chaos to explode around me.

“And why is Megan the one that gets to supervise you?” West continues as he shoves the rest of the cookies into his mouth. “Like, the only other person I’ve seen hanging near you voluntarily is Robin!”

“Wally!” Miss Martian gasps.

West bows his head a little, though he doesn’t look particularly ashamed or sorry. “Well, it’s true,” he mutters.

“He’s not a criminal,” Miss Martian admonishes. “He’s like us! And despite his circumstances, we should make him feel welcome!” She smiles brightly at me and I scowl at her. I do not need a welcoming party.

“I agree,” Artemis says as she steps into the kitchen. She’s dressed in full uniform, her bow and quiver slung across her back. She gives Miss Martian a smile and West a hard shove in the back. The not-really smile that West gives Artemis is strained and doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Despite the friendly appearances, there’s a tension there. It’s the look that West has on his face that gives him away; it’s the same one that Drake used to wear around me.

Wariness. Suspicion.

I laugh and they all look at me.

“You’re all hypocrites,” I say. “Hypocrites and liars.”

Artemis rolls her eyes and punches me in the arm. “Stop trying to make trouble around here,” she says. “Anyway, I’m going. See you guys later.” She waves and I watch her go. West gives a half-hearted wave in return and Miss Martian yells out a cheerful parting farewell.

Clearly, Artemis is leaving. Leaving this cave to go where civilization exists. That means the hallway that she disappeared down is the way to the exit. I quickly file that away in my mind for when I can ditch the alien that keeps following me around.

“Hey, Megan,” West says, looking around the kitchen as if expecting to see something. “Where’s Superboy?”

At that, Miss Martian looks crestfallen. She heaves a little sigh and says, “I think he’s in his room.”

“What? Still?” West frowns. He looks at me and I swear if even so much as implies that I’ve done something to Superboy, I will break his face.

Miss Martian sighs again. “Yeah,” she says and I realize that I’ve been sucked into one of those horrible daytime TV soap operas.

“I can’t believe that you people make up the Teen Titans,” I say, leaning on the countertop with my elbows.

Miss Martian and West stare at me like I’ve grown a second head and for the moment, I’d be happy to have grown a new appendage. Anything to get rid of this sappy atmosphere.

“Uh, we’re not the Teen Titans,” West says slowly. “We’re Young Justice!” He says it with such pride that I’m sure he’s the one that came up with the name.

I do my best to not blink. They’re not the Teen Titans. They’re Young Justice, the team that Drake led. No wonder I don’t like them.

“Who are the Teen Titans?” Miss Martian asks, leaning forward from the other side of the counter, eager to get off the subject of Superboy. “Are they a team like us?”

“Yes,” I say. “They’re the active team of…you people.” I feel myself wrinkling my nose before I can stop it. Thinking about Drake or anything related to Drake just always makes me want to hit something. He’s nothing but a usurper and I have no idea how Grayson and Father trusts him so much. He can deceive them, but I know him for what he really is.

Miss Martian giggles and West twitches.

“’You people?’” West echoes.

“Do you have poor hearing?” I sneer. “They’re this ridiculous group of infantile copycats that try to save the world. Their current team, anyway. Their leader is the worst.”

West raises an eyebrow. He almost seems intrigued. “I’m guessing you don’t like them much,” he says. “Wait, does that mean that I’m part of that team? The Teen Titans?”

I snort. “No. You graduated with top honors and you’re now an old man living a comfortable life at the top of a hill,” I take a moment to think, and then add: “You have a pet armadillo.”

West looks shocked. “I’m an old man?” he says. “Oh my god, I live?” He grins at Miss Martian. “Guess I’m a tough nut to crack!”

Miss Martian smiles back and actually ruffles West’s red hair. “Of course, I wouldn’t expect anything less from you,” she says and she seems genuinely happy for him. West takes the affection in strides and looks sad when she draws away. “Are you not on a team?” she asks me.

“With Batman,” I say and cross my arms over my chest. “I don’t need anyone else.”

West rolls his eyes. “Duh,” he says. “Figures. You’re just like Batman. Like father like son. I can’t believe he tolerates—”

I’m on my feet before he can finish that sentence. “My father was a great man!” I reach out to grab him by the front of his shirt, but West darts away, too quick for the eye to make out besides a soft blur. “How dare you insult him!” I swivel around to face him. “You know nothing about him!”

“Whoa! Whoa!” West yells as he continues to evade my fists. “Stop, okay? I didn’t mean it like that! Chill!”

There’s a tingle at the back of my neck and I’m frozen in spot before I can lay a finger on West. “You don’t need to start a fight every time someone upsets you!” Miss Martian says shrilly. “Wally, are you alright?”

“Yeah, fine,” West says. He cradles what should be his injured arm; the only reason I know it’s injured is because I fractured it two nights ago. He’s being reckless and not wearing the cast. Or maybe he has enhanced healing powers. He turns to me and he’s gritting his teeth like he’s making a huge effort not to do anything stupid. “Look,” he says. “I didn’t mean it like that.” He pauses and then grinds out: “I’m sorry.” He offers his hand. “Truce?”

I stare at it. This situation reminds me of when I first met Drake. What’s West’s angle? I could so easily take him out, just like I did Drake. As fast as West is, he’s not particularly quick with good with close quarter combat.

“Fine,” I snarl, but I don’t shake his hand. He has insulted me and most importantly, Father. I’m already being generous in letting him live. “That…other Robin put you up to this, didn’t he?” This is so like Grayson, always trying to make peace.

West gives a small, wry smile. “Yeah,” he admits and then the smile is gone, replaced with a scowl. “I don’t particularly like you,” he says as Miss Martian gasps. “But I hear you’ve got something important to say.”

“What makes you think I’ll tell now that I know you’re all on to me?” I ask. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about telling not-Grayson whatever, but the way West’s face kind of turns red is hilarious. It’s like baiting a child with sweets and then denying him at the last moment.

“Okay, okay,” Miss Martian says, clapping her hands together loudly to get our attentions. “Stop this, both of you.” She mutters something about boys under her breath. “Wally, weren’t you supposed to be going home for the evening?”

West stares at me.

“Wally, everything will be fine,” Miss Martian says, exasperated as she shoos him off.

“Okay,” he says slowly. “But if you can’t handle him, just give me a call. I’ll be here faster than you can say my name.” He gives her a salacious wink and a wave, disappearing down the corridor that Artemis left through earlier.

Miss Martian sighs and leans heavily upon the countertop, putting her head in her arms. She’s clearly upset over something. Probably all the tension here in this stupid cave. I haven’t seen her leave this place in the two days I’ve been here.

“I can go anywhere if I have someone with me, right?” I ask.

Miss Martian nods, though she doesn’t look at me.

“I want to go outside,” I tell her.

Her back goes ramrod straight and her eyes wide. “Um, I don’t think I can—”

“The exit is this way, isn’t it?” I say, walking down the long corridor that West and Artemis disappeared down. It’s fully fitted with metal walls, unlike most of the cave, and flickering electric lights line the ceiling, casting a strange, white reflection over the metal.

“I don’t think Batman will like it very much if I let you go outside,” she says, her voice right by my ear.

“He is not my father,” I sneer. “He can’t tell me what to do.” No one orders me around.

Miss Martian still looks worried, a frown on her face that drew her brows together. I’ve seen many weird things, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to looking at her. She has freckles! On green skin! How does that even work?

“Stop dawdling. Let’s go already,” I tell her, jarring her from her thoughts.

She’s unexpectedly weak in her resolve to keep me inside, but it’s not in her to be firm. She’s too nice. She’s like Grayson, all heart and no backbone. That’s why people like me exist. I will never understand their way of thinking. I can follow the no-kill code they have, but the only way to really purge the world of wrongdoings is to set an example. Kill the criminals so they won’t do it again and others like them will be scared off. Hopefully.

“Okay,” she says. She takes the lead and floats through the maze-like corridor. There’s a giant, heavily secured door at one end of the hall, but instead of taking that one, we end up going through a simpler looking one. I wonder what’s behind the other door; it’s more like a vault door than anything.

The exit is a large gaping cave hole. There’s a platform that rises from underneath to the interior. If anyone were to just wander in, it would be a shallow cave with a high arcing ceiling of rock. Anyone without prior knowledge would be none the wiser.

Off to the distance is a small town next to a wide expanse of ocean. Many ships, large and small, were docked at the pier and in the darkness; the many twinkling lights of the town are bright and golden. Overhead, the stars are out along with the curving smile of a half moon. The fact that I can actually see the stars is strange. Light pollution is so bad in Gotham that we’d be lucky to even catch sight of Polaris, and that’s only sometimes.

“I think Aqualad is still there,” Miss Martian says, looking at the town. There’s a small breeze in the air and a bit of her hair gets caught on her lip. “He likes to spend time in the ocean.” She gives a small smile. “I keep telling him that he should just stay in Atlantis until there’s actually something to do, but he keeps insisting that since he’s the leader, he should be here.”

“He’s the leader, he should be nearby,” I tell her. Would an army general go wandering? Honestly, this girl.

Miss Martian frowns at my statement, thinking about how to respond to it. “But even Superman doesn’t spend all his time in the Fortress,” she says.

So silly. So naïve. We are soldiers in a war again evil and evil exists in everyone. Just look at Todd and what he’s become. Look at the Joker, Two-Face, Poison Ivy. They were all normal people once and look at them now. We have to be alert, have to be ready.

“He’s Superman,” I say. “He can go anywhere in the world if wanted to in a blink of an eye. The rest of us are only human.”

-

As it turns out, Aqualad is in the harbor. Literally. I think he might be communing with the fish or something because he has a vaguely guilty look when he sees me and Miss Martian come up to him. He looks utterly ridiculous, half in and half out of the water, a circle of fishes surrounding him. They scatter the moment we appear.

“Um, hi!” Miss Martian greets him. She’s not green anymore, but pale and pink skinned like the rest of us. This is even more jarring to look at than her green self.

Aqualad briefly glances at me, but makes no comment. He nods at us and gets out of the water, dripping everywhere. I hope he won’t do what dogs do when they come out of the water. Instead, he grabs a hold of one of his Water Bearers and sort of dries himself off by letting it absorb the water from him.

“Megan. Robin,” he says, though when he says ‘Robin,’ he sounds unsure. I’ve never told them my name. “What are you two doing here?”

“It’s horrible in there,” I say before Miss Martian can talk. “You’re the leader, right? Deal with them! They’re fawning over each other like love-sick puppies! If it were me, I’d have replaced all of you by now. Or even possibly killed someone.” I huff and cross my arms over my chest.

Aqualad looks at me with wide eyes and then to Miss Martian who is a flaming red color in the face.

“Alright,” he says. His tone is amused. “I’ll see what I can do. I’ve been meaning to hold a team meeting anyway.”

-

Fresh air has done me some good, I surmise. I’ve found my location by looking at the stars. I’m still in America, probably not too far from Gotham. As rural as this place seems to be, it’s not that far away from civilization. Somewhere behind Mount Justice is a freeway. I caught sight of a single car traveling on it.

The time for my escape will be soon. I’ll just hotwire a vehicle for the road. I’ll need to go to the garage, but I have a feeling that Batman’s either decided to move it or lock it down after the incident with the Batmobile. It’s not my fault that his car sucked.

It can’t be more than ten o’ clock in the evening when I sneak out again into the corridor. There’s no one there to watch me, thank my luck. Getting caught so early in an escape attempt would be embarrassing. Especially for the future Batman.

I make it as far as the kitchen when someone grabs me by my cape and hauls me clear off the ground.

“What are you doing?” Superboy grounds out, his blue eyes cold and unreadable. Almost like Father’s when he’s Batman wearing his Bruce Wayne skin.

“Getting some milk,” I say and I can tell he doesn’t believe me. After all, I’m wearing my Robin uniform, mask and all.

“You’re not supposed to be out of your room,” he growls. “How did you get out? The door’s supposed to be locked.” He glares at me and I glare back. When he finally lets me down on the floor, I make a beeline to the fridge. There is milk in there. In fact, there’s a whole shelf dedicated to cartons upon cartons of milk.

I grab one and rummage around the cupboard for a decent cup. I find one and pour some milk into it.

“Those are Robin’s,” Superboy says, his voice sounding strange. Like he had to choke them out.

“I am Robin,” I tell him and Superboy scowls.

“You are not Robin,” he says flatly. I roll my eyes and grit my teeth. I have to play nice to get out of here.

From nowhere, there’s a faint beeping sound. At first I thought it was my ears playing tricks on me, but I open my hidden communicator located on my wrist and see that it’s on. I nearly wrench it off and yell; “What took you so long?!”

There’s no answering voice or even a laugh. There’s only a loud static noise. Damn it! It must be picking up errant channels, although I don’t see how. Maybe being in a different reality affected the communicator. I shut it off with a noise of disgust and strap it back to my wrist.

Superboy grabs my arm, his face white. “No! Open it again!” He’s squeezing my arm so hard that it might snap in two.

“Fine!” Let me go!” I yell, hearing my voice go high and squeaky yet again. When he lets go, I flip open the communicator, but again, there’s only static. Superboy is listening intensely, his expression grim and brows furrowed in concentration.

“Morse code,” he says finally after he’s done listening to the most engaging radio program ever.

“What?” I ask and then felt stupid for asking. He has Superman’s abilities. He’s not the brainless idiot from back home. He hears at superhuman levels. “What did it say?” I ask quickly, hoping to cover my blunder.

“Someone needed help,” Superboy answers. “I think it’s Robin.”

Oh. Well, that makes escaping to Gotham that much easier.

-

My emergency communicator’s hooked up to this world’s emergency frequency that Batman uses. How strange that these little things don’t change. First thing I do when I get home is to deck Grayson for not changing it.

Miss Martian’s spaceship is large and red and at first glance it looks like a giant egg. There are just enough seats inside to fit us all: Aqualad, Superboy, and me. Miss Martian stands at the controls, flying us through the air. West would meet us in Gotham; it’d be faster for him to run there on his own than to wait for us.

“Gotham docks,” I say and Miss Martian hurls us through the air in an impossible maneuver that defies all known laws of physics. She drives like Father—disregard for anything that might hold them back.

We land and the first one to greet us is West. He’s tapping his foot impatiently, arms crossed over his chest.

“What’s going on?” he asks. He scans through our faces and frowns. “Where’s Rob?”

“Better question. Where’s Batman?” Aqualad asks, face scanning the rooftops. He had been looking out the windows during the entire flight over. I check my communicators, but there’s nothing and I don’t pick up any GPS signals because my tracker isn’t programmed to pick up these versions of Batman and Robin.

No one answers his question and everyone just glances around nervously.

I prepare to fire one of my grapples, to head towards the roof of some of the warehouses that’s littering Gotham docks when Superboy yells, “Scatter!”

It’s the fastest disappearing act that I’ve seen; Aqualad’s jumps into the water, Superboy’s leaps somewhere into the skies, West zooms away, and Miss Martian literally disappears. I roll my eyes because whatever it is that Superboy heard can’t be worse than what I have to deal with on a daily basis.

This is Gotham. I live here, I work here, and I sure as hell am not scared by anything that pops out in the dark here. I fire my line to the roof of the nearest warehouse to observe.

There’s a loud booming sound in the distance that signals Superboy’s return to earth. Tt! Why would he give us away with such a heavy landing? He has Superman’s powers, no? That should include the ability of flight! Apparently he hasn’t been gifted with the powers of a working brain.

From the shadows steps a strangely dressed girl with an obvious blonde wig. At first it’s only her, but then more and more of them start to swarm the area, heading towards Superboy. All of them are wearing the same thing; a pale blue dress and long white stockings. Some of them are natural blondes and the others wear blonde wigs. They look like the girl from the cover of that one ridiculous book that didn’t make any sense at all.

While I can’t remember the title of the book, I do know who the Mad Hatter is.

I follow the swarm of girls as discreetly as I can; the boots I wear are designed to allow the wearer to be as silent as possible, but even with the absorbers, my feet makes tiny drumming noise on the roofs as I run.

Superboy is crouched defensively, glaring at the group of girls. He’s going to take them down the hard way, not knowing his own strength or the damage that he’ll do. For a moment, the first mission that I go on with Grayson flash before my eyes—the horrible, tormented girl screaming at me to help her, to save her. I had failed and Todd—Tt! I’d rather not think about it.

“Don’t touch them,” I snarl, jumping in the way of Superboy and the girls.

“Why?” Superboy grits through his teeth, though his stance doesn’t change.

“There’s something wrong with them!” Miss Martian says, appearing out of nowhere. She’s floating somewhere above us, not too far away, but not too close either. “Their minds…something’s not right!”

“Mind control,” I say and the swarm of girls gets closer. They’re all hobbling along slowly, almost like zombies, but in their hands is the cold glint of knives.

“I thought we were supposed to scatter!” West yells, his voice coming from every which way as he zooms by. “What’s the big idea?”

There’s a giant wave of water that comes over the harbor and I see Aqualad controlling it. Ice cold sea water comes crashing down on us and knocks a few girls off their feet and sends Kid Flash and Aqualad into this strange little circle we’ve formed.

“Now what?” Superboy growls, looking around. Instead of scattering the girls, all the wave’s done is drench them in water and make their flimsy clothes stick to their skinny bodies. They’re still coming closer and every one of them has a knife.

“We disarm them,” Aqualad says. “Miss Martian?”

“Too many, I can’t stop them all,” she replies. Her eyes are glowing a bright red in the darkness as she forces her will upon the few that are close by.

“We just have to disarm them, right?” Kid Flash says with a grin. He’s dashing and weaving through the girls again, knocking aside knives as he goes. He leaves the girls alone and that is the biggest problem.

“Idiots!” I yell and I take to the roof of the nearest warehouse. Mad Hatter has to be nearby if there’s this many brainwashed girls here; maybe he’s in one of the empty warehouses. Maybe he has Batman and Robin and is otherwise too preoccupied to come outside to deal with the distraction.

I scan up and down the docks, but there are too many shapes in the darkness. Too many places they can be.

“Whoa! Whoa! What are they doing?”

I turn back to evaluate the situation with the others and see that everyone seems to be in a stasis. Kid Flash has stopped moving at super speed and is nervously backing away from the girls. Instead of trying to stab the loudmouthed red head right in front of them, the girls that still have their blades have it aimed at their own necks. The ones that had their weapons taken away are gripping their necks with pasty hands, fingernails leaving ugly marks on their skin. One look at the members of Young Justice tells me that they’re entirely unequipped to handle a situation like this.

How can they save the girls without hurting them? Without killing them? They’ve never been in a situation like this.

Arrows fly through the air with a soundless zing and each one of them start to dispense a fast acting gas that sends the mass of girls to sleep. I look up to the adjacent building and see Artemis, her bow and arrows in action.

“Woo!” West cheers. What on earth is he cheering for? Just because the girls are no longer an obstacle doesn’t mean that Batman or Robin have been found. Not to mention the perpetrator behind the brainwashed girls.

“Jeez, thanks for the heads up,” Artemis says with a roll of her eyes as she jumps down from the roof. “Where’s Batman? Usually he’d be here to tell everyone to get out of his damned city.”

“Otherwise occupied.”

Everyone’s head swiveled to see the Mad Hatter walking out from the sea of unconscious bodies. “Oh, what have you done to my poor Alice?” he asks, nudging one of them with the toe of his shoe. He doesn’t look particularly annoyed at the decimation of his forces.

Superboy blunders up to him and snarls; “Where’s Robin?”

Mad Hatter doesn’t look particularly impressed or even terrified, despite the fact that Superboy is much taller than him. He just grins, his drastic overbite gleaming white in the darkness. “You want to know where they are? Go find them! They’re around here, somewhere,” he says, touching the brim of his oversized top hat.

There has to be something, I think frantically, because he’s so confident. Why? It can’t just be the girls in the strange outfits lying scattered around us; there has to be something else. Or _someone_ else.

Miss Martian holds up a hand into the air, her other hand resting on her temple as she scans the area with her telekinesis. I feel the strange, ghostly brush of pressure against the back of my skull and I know it’s her, scanning over everything in range. She gasps and stumbles back abruptly, her eyes opening red and glowing. “No,” she breathes and she’s struggling against some unknown assailant, clawing and screaming to get away. West manages to catch hold of her hand and she slaps him so hard, he’s flung backwards into the nearest wall.

“Megan!” he shouts and everyone’s rushing to her side.

“What did you do to her?” Aqualad demands, his water bearers taking the shape of two heavy looking clubs. He’s advancing on the Hatter, ready to strike.

“Nothing!” the Hatter titters and claps his hands together gleefully. “Nothing at all, but I think that she might have peeked into someone’s nightmare. Or maybe two certain someones.”

This doesn’t make sense! The Mad Hatter is about mind control, isn’t he? Forcing nightmares onto others isn’t his modus operandi. I can think about it all night, but when it comes down to it, action speaks louder than words. Much louder. And it solves things too.

I swing down from the roof and land on the Hatter’s shoulders. He tumbles to his feet, his top hat knocked aside. He’s weak, almost ridiculously so. I don’t understand why he’s still around, how he even manages to survive in the nights of Gotham when there are worse things in the shadows. Black Mask. Two-Face. Joker. Then again, he’s been to Arkham and is probably on a first name basis with everyone. Lunatics. I’ll never understand them.

I twist his left arm behind his back and plant my foot at the back of his skull.

“You little pipsqueak—” he snarls and I press my foot harder downward and I hear his teeth click against the concrete.

“You struggle, and I’ll put your teeth through your gums,” I tell him. No killing, I remind myself. Hurry and get the info out of him while everyone else is distracted by Miss Martian. “Put your right hand where I can see it.”

“Who are you? You’re not Robin,” he says, craning his head around to look at me. His right hand is splayed out on the concrete next to his head. I press down on his thumb and pop it out of its socket.

“No suspicious movements either,” I say as he writhes on the ground, his screams muffled by the concrete. “Where’s Batman and Robin?” I ask. When he doesn’t answer, I pull the rest of his fingers out of their sockets and he screams, bucking against me, but I firmly plant his face against the ground. He doesn’t try to move and I think his front teeth might be chipped. It doesn’t matter; he’s a criminal and I should just snap his scrawny neck, but I’m not. See, Grayson, I want to shout, I’ve learned! Instead, I say; “I don’t have all night.”

“Farthest w-warehouse on the d-docks,” the Hatter says, his breath coming out pitchy and uneven. He’s trembling, just slightly, and if I could, I’d put him out of his misery. He fears me. As it should be. All villains and criminals alike should fear me.

“Describe it,” I hiss and put pressure on his wrist. They’re thinner than mine. Father’s records say that he’s a genius of a man, though lacking any physical prowess, and I can see that the Hatter’s just a tech-nerd with a psychopathic streak miles wide. His hands are calloused from machines and writing and there’s nothing to indicate that he’s a fighter.

“The one l-labeled thirty-n-nine!” he squeals. I snap his wrist easily, feeling rather than hearing the bone and sinew dislocate. He howls and I let go, yanking him to his feet and handcuffing him to the nearest lamp post. His left hand is completely useless and if it isn’t treated soon, it might need to be amputated. That should rid the world of one lunatic.

A hand lands on my shoulder and I nearly put a batarang through Aqualad’s face. “You—”

“We have our info,” I hiss and look behind him. Miss Martian is out cold, probably put to sleep with one of Artemis’s sleep arrows. “Don’t question my methods. Let’s go.”

Aqualad looks torn for a moment. “We’re talking about this,” he says with finality. “Later.”

No one talks at all as we make our way to the eastern most end of the docks. Artemis leaves Miss Martian carefully concealed next to some crates.

Warehouse number thirty-nine looks the same as all the rest, although a bit more run down. A fight had clearly happened here; there were dents against the metal loading blocks and a singed smell in the air indicative of explosives. Shattered glass lay on the concrete, gleaming invisibly in the night. Large, ugly barrels stand untouched next to the building and inside, all is dark and silent.

A trap. It has to be.

Superboy doesn’t waste a moment in ripping the building a new hole. The moment he does it, I hear a faint hissing sound surrounding us and realize that the barrels that surround the place are leaking a noxious smelling gas.

I reel back in horror, clutching my mouth and nose as I recognize the sick, greenish tinge. Superboy continues to obliviously barrel forward into the darkness, stamping his feet angrily like a child. “I can hear you!” he yells. “Who’s there?”

“Don’t breathe it,” I snap to the rest of the team that’s backing away from the gas. Superboy is immersed in it and he’s starting to cough and scratch at his throat.

“Superboy, get out of there!” Aqualad yells, but it’s too late.

Superboy roars and brings his fist down onto the concrete next to him, smashing through the ground entirely. Like Miss Martian earlier, he’s struggling and fighting at an invisible enemy. His face is pasty white and when he turns to look out at us, his normally blue eyes are completely dark and unfocused.

“Uh, Supes—” West doesn’t even manage to finish as Superboy roars again and leaps forward. He’s fast and he nearly nicks me as I dive to get out of the way. He seems to be targeting West, probably because he’s so brightly colored against the murkiness of Gotham.

“Oh, jeez, not again,” he mutters as he zooms away, faster than even Superboy can react. He’s racing in a circle, trying to create a fan to dispel the gas. “Artemis! Aqualad! A little help here!”

“Got your back, Kid,” Artemis says and lets one of her arrows fly. Superboy catches it in midair.

At first, I think that she’s done something stupid like think she could actually take down a clone of Superman with a plain bow and arrow, but then Superboy relaxes and slumps over. The arrow in his hand is releasing a thick, sweet smell that’s making me drowsy just being near it. I back away as quickly as I can. This must be what she used to take down Miss Martian and the army of girls.

“That’s the last one,” she says, straightening. “All out of my sleep arrows.” She manages to pick up the prone form of Superboy and drag him away from the large barrels emitting the green gas. She’s stronger than she looks.

“Get out of here,” I tell them. “You’re useless and getting in the way.”

“No,” Aqualad says. “We’re contacting the League. We’re in over our heads. We retreat. Now.”

There’s no time to discuss anything, to argue. We’re two men down and we haven’t even located Batman and Robin yet. Assuming the Hatter gave us the right information, too. The situation isn’t getting any better. I grit my teeth and reign in the wave of insults that are on my tongue. Tt, amateurs. How did they ever survive this long? If it were just me, I’d have taken out all the opponents and without falling into any of their stupid traps.

“Oh, don’t leave! The fun’s only starting!” It’s a familiar, slimy voice that I recognize instantly. From the darkness of the warehouse emerges a pale face and blood red lips attached to an ugly purple suit.

“Joker,” West hisses.

I look around, at the rooftops, into the murky shadows, behind us. This can’t be it; there’s someone else. There has to be because the gas released earlier with the lingering filthy smell is not Joker toxins. There’s no laughing, no insane grins. Instead, there’s fear. Fear gas.

“Where’s Scarecrow?” I demand because logically, he’s the only one that can be behind the gas. Tt, this is just getting worse and worse. A three way partnership between the Mad Hatter, Scarecrow, and Joker? Unheard of, unlikely, and yet here they are. What makes Gotham supervillains so different from the rest isn’t because they have super strength or the ability to fly; it’s because they’re cunning. They’re sly like Lex Luthor, ruthless like Sinestro, and with the whimsy of Circe. It’s not a winsome combination.

Joker laughs, his lips pulling into a wide grin, revealing rows of perfectly straight teeth. This version of him is younger, tamer looking than the one I’m used to. There are fewer lines on his face, he’s not as heavy as he might be in the future, and yet I’m still reminded of when I met him, when I had his life in my hands only to have the tables turned. This isn’t the psychopath that killed Todd, not the villain that destroyed Gordon. He will be, someday.

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll see him around,” Joker says, waving a hand dismissively. I should end him. End him now before he destroys everything in Fath—Batman’s life.

“Get out of here,” I tell the others again. There must’ve been a break out at Arkham. It’s the only explanation for having so many of these lunatics banding together. “I’ll take care of him.”

“Forget it!” West yells, his stance defensive and eyes narrowed in the direction of the Joker. “I’ve heard the stories; you are not taking him on alone!”

“Shit,” Artemis curses, a hand at her ear. “Connection to the Justice League is jammed.” Her lips are set in a thin line, her grip on her bow white-knuckled. “We’re on our own.”

“There’s still four of us against one of him!” West says. “We can take him!”

Joker shakes his head and heaves a heavy sigh. “Oh, children,” he says in mock sadness, holding his hand over his heart. “I wanted the Justice League’s attention and what do I get? A bunch of brats!” His expression changes instantly, stepping forward and out of the giant hole Superboy created. “Since you’re here anyway, why don’t you tell me what’s black and red and doesn’t fly?” He grins widely and moves just in time to dodge one of Artemis’s arrows. She hadn’t been aiming to kill, but to injure—her arrow flies harmlessly through the air and lands against something hard in the warehouse.

“What did you do to them?!” West yells. His face is pale and he’s shaking slightly. The idiot must have inhaled some of the fear gas.

“You worked it out?” Joker laughs like it’s the funniest joke he’s ever heard. “Aren’t you a smart little cookie. Presenting, the Bat and the Bird!” he says with an extravagant bow. Somewhere above, I hear an answering laugh, high pitched like a girl’s.

Harley Quinn. When has the Joker recruited her? She hasn’t been active in the early days of Batman and didn’t even show up till later in Grayson’s Robin career. Although she’s probably just as useless as the Mad Hatter, she might have been putting booby traps around us. Or maybe she’s torturing Batman and Robin. She’s good for menial tasks. She’s too dependent on stronger people to accomplish much by herself.

“Harley! Let them drop!” Joker yells.

“Whatever you say, puddin’!” Quinn yells back in her distinctive accent and pushes two dark shapes over the edge of the warehouse.

It’s Batman and Robin.

Batman at least seems to be struggling out of unconsciousness, but Robin is unmoving. He’s so still, he might as well have been dead.

“Like what you see?” the Joker cackles. There’s nothing but stunned silence from the others, but this doesn’t require them. It’s only Quinn up at the top of the roof and she’ll be an easy target to take out. Pulling Batman and Robin up from where they hang is probably the hard part, considering how much Batman weighs with his gear. Or maybe I can just cut their lines and drop them. They might break a bone or two, but it’s better than death.

I pull out my grapple and fire it off, landing on the roof with no problems. I see Quinn, dressed in her ridiculous jester outfit and a smile so wide on her face that it’s almost unnatural, but I don’t see Scarecrow until it’s too late. He slams a metal canister against my rib cage, effectively knocking the wind out of me and I fall to the ground, my balance off and breath rattling in my chest.

“Hey,” Scarecrow calls out as I try to get to my feet as fast as I can. He’s wearing a gas mask over his ridiculous sack-face and I realize that the canister that he had used as a weapon contains fear gas. And he’s liberally spraying it in my face. “How many Robins are there? I think we just caught another one.”

“The more the merrier!” Joker says gleefully from somewhere still on the ground. “Anyone else want to join him?”

The gas is tilting my vision upside down and side to side, doubling and blurring everything. The night is suddenly ominous and dangerous and my stomach tightens in a way that I haven’t felt for a while.

No! I cannot succumb to this…this cowardly, ridiculous gas! This infantile way of fighting!

I reach for Scarecrow, but my hands close around a black gauntlet instead. I look up to see Father, standing tall and alive and fearsome in his full Batman regalia. The only visible part of his skin—his jaw—is set, tight, and his lips are drawn back into an ugly sneer.

“You disappoint me,” he says, and his fist meets my gut. I reel back, but a hand grips me by the hair, dragging me forward to meet a knee. I manage to twist at the last moment so instead of breaking my nose, I get a bruise on my cheek.

This is fake. This isn’t real. Father is dead. Father is dead. Fatherisdeaddeadead—

And then he takes off his cowl and it’s not Father at all, but Grayson and his eyes are colder than steel. There’s no preamble as he wraps a hand around my throat and squeezes, his fingers tightening around my windpipe and making it impossible to breathe. I try to lash out, try to dislodge the hand on my throat, but every time I try to move my vision swims and my limbs lock.

There’s a loud bang somewhere to my right and a pale hand extends out from the darkness, grabbing me by the shoulder. Before I know it, I’m falling and I desperately try to reach for my line, but my limbs are trapped to my sides. The hand around my throat is still there, but it’s now just something extending from nothing because Grayson isn’t anywhere and all around is blackness. Someone’s talking, shouting in my ear. I can’t make heads or tails out of it; it’s just noise, almost like static.

The landing is abrupt, though the hand somehow cushions me when I fall and lets me slide to the ground, boneless. Rough and under my gloved hands, I can feel hard concrete, but I can’t see anything aside from moving shadows and blackness.

Without warning, the hand around my throat comes back, tighter than before. I grab at it, try to wrench it off, claw at it, but it doesn’t budge. I try to yell, to curse, but no sound comes out because I can barely breathe. And then—

Something heavy hits me at the back of the neck and I’m forcibly put unconscious.

-

“Great rescue effort,” I hear Robin say.

“Tell that to the other you,” Artemis snips from a bit farther away. “I was about to sever the ropes when the little idiot jumps onto the roof and gets himself taken down. I had to use the rest of my arrows to distract them instead of cutting you guys down.” She gives a little sigh. “I still can’t believe he melted my bow. I’m glad the string snapped in his face.”

I open my eyes, but I don’t move a muscle. Neither Robin nor Artemis notices that I’ve woken up and I do a cursory glance around the room.

Robin and Artemis have their feet shackled to a long chain that wraps around a large support beam in the middle of the room. Preventing them from escaping is a strange weight on the other side, acting like a scale, and it’s hooked up to what looks like a crude version of a battery. I guess if one of them managed to escape, the other one would get electrocuted. I can’t see any more than that, so I sit up, letting them know I’m awake.

I’m in a cage right next to Robin, my hands and arms bound tightly together up to the elbows. My legs are free because whoever put me in the cage thinks that as long as my hands are restrained, it’ll be fine. Glancing around, I see Batman is chained to the wall, also hooked up to some strange mechanism that looks like it’ll release some sort of gas if activated. It can either be Joker toxins or fear gas. At this point, neither is a good option.

Superboy is laying on the floor not too far away, but from the pale, almost sickish tinge of his skin, the lump that’s taped to his chest has to be kryptonite. Aqualad and Miss Martian are in another cage, both of them bound together by their hands, and the low hum of electricity runs through the air. None of them are conscious. West is nowhere to be seen. If anything, he’s fast enough to get away from Gotham and get the Justice League.

Tt. How embarrassing.

“Where’s the Joker?” I ask. There is a door on the far side of the room where there’s muffled yelling and the sound of an argument coming from.

“Around,” Robin replies, waving a hand in the general direction of the door. “Scarecrow’s mad because you broke the Hatter’s arm. I think they’re besties.”

Artemis makes a sound of frustration and throws herself down backwards onto the dusty warehouse floor. This warehouse is dusty, though well-lit and not destroyed; this can’t be thirty-nine, meaning we’ve been moved. We could have even been moved to a whole other location! Wonderful. I hate this reality.

“The Hatter and Scarecrow are planners,” I say with a sneer. “They’ve had no combat training and the only thing they rely on is their brain. When push comes to shove, they’ll just fall right down.”

“Really?” Robin replies. Though he has his mask on, I can tell he’s raising an eyebrow at me. “What would you classify the Joker and Harley as, huh?”

“Quinn’s a pawn,” I say with a snort. “A tool at best, but other than that, nothing. The Joker, he’s—” Dangerous. Murderous. A psychopath with some strange fascination with Father. With Batman.

The door bangs open and Quinn stomps in, a bit of color on her otherwise pale cheeks. “Hey!” she yells and it’s clear that she’s been yelling for a while. “What’re you sayin’ about my puddin’?!”

“That he’s, I don’t know, crazy?” Robin snaps. He kicks his feet impatiently, making the chain rattle. “Let us go already! The Justice League is on their way. You’re all screwed.”

“We have you as hostages,” the Joker says as he walks into the room, Scarecrow and Mad Hatter behind him. The Hatter has his arm in a rough looking cast and he doesn’t come anywhere near my cage, opting for skirting around it when he has to pass by. Scarecrow just looks mildly annoyed, though not by any of us. He’s glaring into the back of Joker’s skull like he has Superman’s heat vision. This is why Gotham villains tend not to band together—they can never work together for long periods of time.

The Joker sighs melodramatically, turning to Batman. “And here I thought the Justice League was going to show up. We were all prepared and BAM! The wonderful presentation was ruined! By these stupid brats!” He kicks the prone form of Superboy, eliciting a small groan of pain. “Well, we have an encore prepared anyway,” he says, rubbing his hands together. “It’ll be even better!” He cackles and when Batman continues to ignore him, his mouth pulls into a frown. “I’m talking here, Bats!”

“Why deal with the Justice League at all?” Scarecrow snaps. “We should just unmask him already! And then give him everything that he deserves!”

“Exactly!” Hatter says, nodding. “We can’t—”

Tiny, screeching beeps from my communicator on my wrist starts up and they all turn to stare at me. I hadn’t activated anything and the only two people that have access to the emergency frequency are in this room, also staring at me.

“What did you do?” Quinn yells and kicks my cage. She stubs her toe on the metal bar, but the Joker reaches through and grabs me by the front of my uniform.

“Hello, Robin,” he says, dangerous grin on his face. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced yet. You see, I hadn’t even known that Batsy’s got a new sidekick. Or maybe you’re just tagging along for the ride, who cares, but you know? I didn’t give you a proper Gotham welcome.”

He’s reaching for something, something that I can’t see and his teeth is a strangely bleached white color. Maybe it’s the bright red of his lips that’s offsets it, but it’s strange, especially when I keep thinking there should be yellow tingeing them. The lights abruptly turn off, plunging the room into darkness. I hear Quinn’s squeal of surprise and the hand on my uniform lets go.

“Harley! Get the lights!” the Joker yells. “Now!”

“Goin’ now!” she hollers back and there’s a shuffling noise and the banging of a door as she leaves.

“Hey, do you think it’s…you know?” Scarecrow says and I hear Artemis snickering.

“Oh, you bet,” she practically purrs.

“No!” Joker shouts, irritation lacing his voice. “If it was Big Blue, there’d be a hole in the ceiling by now.” He kicks my cage and I can’t help the smirk, but it’s so dark, no one sees it. The beeps from my communicator had abruptly ceased the moment the lights went out and I know who’s here. Tt, this is almost embarrassing, with me being in the situation that I’m in. If only my knives weren’t taken away, I could have easily gotten out of the stupid bindings around my hands and arms. They’re impossibly tight and leave little room for movement.

There’s a nervous tension in the air because everyone knows what Joker says is true; if it were Superman or one of those Justice League idiots, they’d have ripped open the roof and stormed in guns blazing by now. The massive amount of property damage that they cause is legendary and I’m sure Father has the bills hidden somewhere.

But nothing is happening, aside from a blackout. Quinn isn’t back yet so either something’s happened to her or she’s still puzzling over the lights.

There’s an almost imperceptible click of a lock and the Hatter squeaks. “H-Harley, is that you?” He must be near the door because I don’t hear footsteps or see someone else entering the room. Then again, it’s too dark to see anything. There’s a woosh of air from somewhere and the Hatter yelps and falls silent.

“Damn it, do I have to do everything around here?!” Joker pulls out a flashlight and the first thing he does is shine it on the wall that Batman had been chained to. He’s gone, the chains and all the other mechanics rigged to him on the floor. The barrels of gas lay harmlessly in their corners, not set off at all. Joker screeches and a dark shadow punches him in the jaw. When he falls, he crashes into the cage that holds Aqualad and Miss Martian. The flashlight clatters to the floor, useless and spinning, casting shadows everywhere.

The door to my cage is flung open and a giant shadow stares down at me. In the revolving light of the flashlight, I see Batman.

Not this world’s Batman, not Bruce Wayne, but Dick Grayson.

Instead of dealing with the pressing issue of untying my arms and letting me have a punch at the Joker, he puts his arms over my shoulders and smash my face against his chest so all I could smell was Kevlar and sweat and the strange scent that’s distinctly him; a mishmash of metal and chalk and coffee beans in the morning.

“Grayson,” I try to say, but it comes out as ‘marghblgh,’ so tightly am I pressed against him. I try to push, but he clings on tighter and he’s whispering something, something about it being a month and a half and how he’d never be able to face Father.

The lights turn on and not-Grayson gives a whoop of joy. I’m aware that as the others are slowly freed, I’m still sitting on the floor wrapped in Grayson’s embrace. It’s awkward, it’s warm, it’s gone on too long and I kick him to snap him out of his stupid melodrama.

“You can untie me now,” I tell him and he gives me a faint smile. I glare and try to squirm away without being too obvious about it.

-

It must be strange for everyone that’s there to see two Batmans; Superman had shown up and then promptly left not too soon after when he discovered everything was fine and no one was hurt. He did everything in his power to look anywhere but Superboy. There’s a story there, I know, and I wonder if that’s one of the reasons this Superboy is so different from Conner Kent from home.

The Flash is there, bright red in the dreary darkness of Gotham, alternating between chatting with the police and looking after the woozy Aqualad and Miss Martian, who had both just come to. Batman is talking to Commissioner Gordon, refusing to look anywhere else, much less interact with anyone else. His back is tense and ramrod straight. What’s going through his mind is anyone’s guess.

“Whoa,” West gasps as he diverts his attention from the GCPD load the Arkham escapees into the back of a van. “Is that…the other Batman?”

“You have eyes, don’t you?” I say.

He glares and looks like he’s about to say something when Artemis cuts in. “Look! Can you two just knock it off?” She glares at the both of us holds up the ruins of her bow. “If any of you start something stupid, I’m going to pull your spines out with this.”

West’s expression shifts to something lightly resembling confusion when he says; “I don’t think you can actually pull out a spine with—”

“Try me,” she says and West shuts up.

He’s whipped. I’ve learned enough tact from Grayson to know when I should keep my mouth shut and not actually say that out loud. There’s a low chuckle and Batman—Grayson—comes up to us with a smile on his face. He’s holding a small, rectangular contraption and I know without asking that it’s the ticket home.

“I see you made friends,” he says and I glare. The others seem to cower in fear of the smiling Batman.

I see the exact moment when Grayson’s eyes shifts from me to someone behind me and I look too, to see not-Grayson and Grayson stare at each other. Grayson must know that he’s looking at himself and not Drake because he’s not saying anything, the smile frozen on his face. It’s not-Grayson that breaks the strange silence that settles between them.

“I won’t be like you,” he says, lips drawn into a frown. “I won’t just leave him. I won’t let what happened to you happen to me.”

Grayson glances at me and I know he’s going to lecture me about this later, but I couldn’t care less. He can try being stuck in the past with this weird mess of a rookie team.

He sighs and makes a movement like he wants to run his hand through his hair, but doesn’t. He’s wearing the Batman cowl, not the domino masks of Robin or Nightwing. “Don’t—don’t be me,” he says finally. “Be who you’re meant to be.”

I roll my eyes; Grayson’s horrible at being cryptic. He makes me want to punch him for it. “Look, whatever happens, happens. Deal with it,” I tell not-Grayson and to Grayson, I gesture at the remote he’s holding. “Aren’t we going home? This world isn’t big enough for two Batmans.”

He cracks a smile at that and nods, visibly doing his best to not look for the other Batman, for Bruce Wayne. “Yeah,” he says after a beat. “Yeah. Let’s go home.”

I glower and he activates the machine, creating what can only be described as a black hole in the middle of Gotham docks. Grayson grabs my shoulder in a tight grip and I ignore the tiny tremors going through him. There’s no fanfare when we leave, no shouts of good-byes; the harbor just disappears behind us and we reappear in the same location, minus the people and the sirens.

All is calm in Gotham; strange, since it’s Gotham and there’s always something happening. There’s no trace of the Joker, Scarecrow or even the Mad Hatter having been there. Even if the event had happened, it’s been more than ten years since. I can’t help but look at the spot where Miss Martian’s spaceship would have been.

My com-link buzzes to life in my ear.

“Mission success, B,” a distinctly female voice says. “Welcome back, R.”

“Whatever,” I say as my stomach growls and I tear my eyes from the empty space. “I’m hungry. I had nothing but Martian baking for three days.”

Grayson laughs. “Okay,” he says, smile on his face, previous distress put aside already. “We’ll take the night off. Batgirl and the others can take care of things. How does pizza sound?”

“Something not going to kill me when I’m older,” I say with a slight glare, but Grayson isn’t listening. He’s flying through the air, the cape snapping in the wind behind him.

He sets an almost uncompromising pace back to where he’s parked the Batmobile, which is closer to Crime Alley and a bit out of the ways from the docks. I follow and not a word is passed between us, not even when we reach the penthouse.

He’s angry. Or blaming himself. Knowing him, it’s a combination of both.

“Look, Grayson,” I start to say, but he interrupts me.

“Damian,” he says and pulls the cowl off. His hair is longer than I remember and it gets into his eyes, but he looks practically the same since I’ve left him. “Don’t ever jump in front of me again.”

I think back to that night, when Grayson did nothing to save himself. Had just stood there and stared down the barrel of the energy blaster. Someone had to do something and I had been the only one around.

“Then don’t just stand there!” I tell him. “You didn’t do a goddamned thing, Grayson. I took the hit for you, you don’t get to lecture me about this.” I cross my arms over my chest.

“Damian,” he says and he sounds a little broken. How long have I been gone? “Damian. You’re Robin. Don’t you understand? Batman needs Robin.”

Something in me breaks and I surge forward, trying to hit him. He catches my fist easily. “But I failed!” I yell at him. “I didn’t get to rescue Batman and Robin. It was you! You rescued everyone! Including me!”

Grayson tries for a smile and drops my fist. “But you saved me, right?”

I let my hand fall to my side. Sometimes, I really hate talking to him. His logic just doesn’t make sense, but it calms the rage within me because he just looks so eager, so happy. “You owe me big time, Grayson,” I tell him.

He laughs, little huffs of breath, and ruffles my hair before I can push his hand away. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Now, let’s go get that pizza.”

“Fine,” I say, and maybe, I lean into his touch. And maybe, his hand lingers a bit longer than necessary.


End file.
